Former Sandy Hook Park Ranger Describes 'Soul-Crushing' Sandy Damage

HIGHLANDS, NJ ? A seasonal park ranger at Gateway National Park, Sandy Hook was one of the first inside the national park the morning after Superstorm Sandy hit New Jersey on Oct. 29, 2012 ? and he will never forget what he witnessed.

"I really wasn't supposed to go out there. They had closed the Highlands bridge," recalled Thomas Minton, who lived in Red Bank at the time. "I drove my car as far as I could, parked in the parking lot of Off the Hook (a local restaurant) and walked over the bridge."

He then proceeded to walk five miles from the entrance of Sandy Hook to the park's tip, which juts out into the middle of Raritan Bay.

The park was closed by the National Park Service at the time, but Minton, now 39, said he had to see for himself exactly what kind of damage the superstorm had wrought.

"I could not believe what I was seeing: Three to four feet of sand covered all the roads and trees in the park," he said. "There were 20-foot-long motorboats all over the roads on the Navesink side of the park."

He walked as far as the Sea Gull's Nest, a beloved beachfront bar inside Sandy Hook that permanently closed after Sandy. There was three feet of sand inside the building. A pick-up truck associated with the bar was flipped upside down in five feet of water.

He kept walking.

An artillery mine storage magazine (Sandy Hook is a former U.S. Army proving ground) made entirely of concrete had been folded and crushed in on itself, "like a cardboard box," Minton recalled.

Just outside the park, all the homes and beach clubs in Highlands and Sea Bright had been destroyed. Garbage was strewn all over the streets.

"The entire Ship Ahoy Beach Club had been picked up and was hanging over the sea wall," he said. The club has since been rebuilt. "It really was soul crushing to see the devastation Sandy caused in Highlands, Sea Bright and at Sandy Hook. I grew up in Monmouth County; my family has lived here for generations. To see the damage Sandy did to this area was actually heartbreaking."

At the time, Sheriff Shaun Golden told NJ.com Sandy caused "utter destruction" in Monmouth County, particularly waterfront towns where the sea and bay have always been part of the way of life:

A dozen businesses in Atlantic Highlands were completely destroyed. More than 100 homes in tiny Union Beach were destroyed, with 30 homes completely washed away by the record-high tide. Police had to rescue 100 people from Union Beach alone. The storm caused 1,000 Monmouth County residents to stay in shelters put up by the state of New Jersey.

Not only did the water level rise nine feet in Raritan Bay (many homes were already at bay level before the storm, so those were the first to be carried away), but a gauge at a pier in Sandy Hook recorded the water was 13.31 feet above the average low tide. That was before the pier collapsed and the gauge stopped reporting. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Sandy set historic maximum recorded water levels at Sandy Hook.

But still, there were moments of hope among the devastation.

"I remember going to the Red Bank Dunkin' Donuts on Nov. 1 right after the storm, the one right on Front Street," he said. "There must have been 70 people waiting outside to get coffee because nobody had power for days. And it was starting to get cold, too. I remember there was no jostling, no anger, no tears, no sense of panic. Everyone was just asking everyone else what kind of damage they had suffered, and could they lend tools, clean-up help, etc. It was like we all became neighbors and we knew we were all in this together."

Minton and other Sandy Hook park ranges and volunteers worked for the next 40 days straight from November 8 to December 18 to clean up Sandy Hook.

To this day, many Monmouth County locals say Sandy Hook has never quite been the same since the storm hit, as the Sea Gull's Nest never reopened, and some beaches have been permanently altered by the storm surge.